Where You Came From & Why You Left

So I've been around the block a bit when it comes to life.
From Chicago to New York to Ohio to Kentucky to Ohio to Massachusetts to Florida to London,

there's been more than a few places that I've spent my time.
But there are only two places that I really consider myself 'from.'

I spent my childhood in a little town up in northeast Ohio called Chardon.

It was the absolute perfect place for a child.
We lived on a cul-de-sac with a group of kids,
where we would have weekly kickball games and capture the flag.

My backyard was full of forest, and it became our own little world.

I could leave the house at 9 years old and my parents wouldn't have to worry.

Then next half of my life was spent in Louisville, Kentucky.
Like Chardon, it was the perfect to be for the age that I was.
Louisville was big enough to have all the things you want as a teenager.

Mixers, movie theatres, and malls.

It was the type of place where your parents went to your high school,

and their parents went as well.

A literal 'born and raised' city.

Having moved there when I was 12, though, I wasn't apart of that.

I didn't have any ties to the place besides the ones that I was making on my own,
so it wasn't hard for me to leave for college in Ohio - I was used to change.
Which also made it less difficult to adjust to when my parents moved down to Florida a few years later too.

I've had places that I call home, but I don't know if I've ever felt entirely connected to a place.
Which, I think, is a reason why I was okay with leaving.
Six months felt like a long time to leave for another country,
but it wasn't scarier than the thought of staying put.

I have always felt like my life was meant to be something special - like there was always more to it.
I still feel like that.
Call it my terrible anxiety with 'settling' but I have never been a person to want to feel anything but that I am living one hell of a life.
Which is why I can't just 'let it go.' Why would I do that?

My biggest fear is to live a life of 'what if's'
so I guess there's nothing left to do about that
other than do everything I've dreamed about.